SLAVERY:
A POEM
“I would not have a slave to till my ground –
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep –
For all the wealth that sinews bought and sold
Have ever earned.” – Cowper
Concord, N.H.:
Printed by McFarland & Jenks.
1856
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POEM.
I.
Muses, awake, while the fresh morning shines,
And view your cities in the land of vines,
For time has stripped them of their summer’s
glow,
And turned their pleasures to a scene of woe.[5]
Their martial pomp is sinking in decay,
And marble temples moldering away;
Their silvery fountains, streaming into spires,
Are marshes now, and overgrown with briers,
The banquet long hath ceased within their halls,[10]
And foreign arms have broken down their walls;
The sacred fire has ceased to glitter there,
And faithful priest to offer up a prayer;
Their mighty men will plead for arms no more,
Nor praise their heroes when the war is o’er.[15]
The Bards, alas! ‘tis worthy to complain,
Have sung their last but never dying strain;
With all the rest have met th’ untimely doom,
And traced their journey through the dismal
gloom,[20]
With Orphean steps, beguiled from every fear,
While Shades entranced with music hover near,
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Till, borne beyond the fatal river’s shore,
They leave the heavenly Muse forever more.
How lonely now the desert world appears![25]
A city razed beneath the march of years,
A stately palace into ashes burned;
A Hall of music by the winds o’er-turned!
The Poets gone! their memory fades away,
And wisdom weeps, but can no longer stay;[30]
Then here review the oft reviving cause,
Whence the dark ages come by Heavens laws,
The happiest state mankind has ever known,
Was when he lived contented with his own,
And ne’er aspired to rule his weaker friends,[35]
Watched his own acts, and always made amends.
Then bloody Mars his banner ne’er displayed,
And courts of justice never had been made,
And wrapt in doubt they watched the starry
clime:[40]
Imagination strode the wings of time,
Which, borne to Heaven, no favor ever shows
On earth-born evil, or her children’s woes;
But when their fancy left the heavenly sphere,
To always gaze on things that rested near,[45]
The love of self, that serpent, stole along,
And scattered poison ‘mid the happy throng.
Contention then, and madness soon ensued,
And maniac hatred fired many a feud,
Till secret plots in the dark night were laid,[50]
The trumpet shrieked, and burst the ambuscade;
The neighing war-horse bore remorseless man,
And reckless fury filled the fatal van.
Tumultuous scenes then “filled the spacious
earth”[55]
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And man was prized by what his toil was worth,
For those subjected served the prouder part –
Oppression even conquered noble Art!
Then pale distress, and want, and sickly grief,
In vain appealing for a kind relief,[60]
Involved the world in deep and hopeless gloom,
Till Heaven frowned and spoke their final doom;
And every virtue from the hand of God,
Was swept away by sin’s destroying flood.
‘Tis thus that nations young and virtuous rise,[65]
While signs propitious fill the cheerful skies;
But sinful pride and death-enamored lust
Sweep every fabric to its native dust;
For, so ‘tis planned that nature’s laws produce
A compensation worthy their abuse.[70]
II.
O, wandering friends, on this the stranger’s
shore,
Let fancy waft you the creation o’er;
In either clime to catch a hasty view
Of ancient causes and of nations new;[75]
Nor linger long, for all must hurry here,
Or mad advancement leaves them in the rear.
When Wisdom left the cruel world for Heaven,
To servile chains by Eastern nations driven,
And the pale sun might well have hid his face –[80]
Ashamed to view the wreck of human race –
The lovely fields on India’s fertile shore,
Month after month were steeped in livid gore,
Till Freedom’s murderers sickened at the sight,
And Death, pale monster, grinned with less de-[85]
light.
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While Desolation scattered wild alarms,
And savage chieftains brandished equal arms,
Love, bride of Wisdom, wept at human woe,
And, both together, sought the world below,[90]
Where grim Destruction, red with recent fight,
Parent of Grief, the son of Storms and Night,
Still grasped the helm, contending every hour,
While each dispute revived his dying power.
‘Twas through those scenes of tumult, rash[95]
and vain,
That Wisdom slowly, calmly sought the plain,
To view contending armies full enrolled,
In spheres of vengeance, crimes, and love of gold;
Each, rife with madness, burning to destroy –[100]
The friends of grief and enemies of joy.
One look! alone, unknown and unadmired,
To distant vales the friends of peace retired,
And dwelt in forests where the mountains rise,
Around whose base the lofty lightening flies,[105]
And left forever those of scarlet crimes,
For milder people and more western climes.
Of those who found on India’s bloody shore,
The vilest conquered and the weak gave o’er,
In slavish chains to end their bated breath,[110]
Or rise to slaughter and more sudden death,
Rehearsing scenes of torture and dispair,
Till heaven should chain the fiends that gov-
erned there.
How prone to evil, misery and woe,[115]
With iron hearts, are mortals here below!
Things of most value are the lowest prized;
The noblest foresight is the most despised;
The strictest virtue crosses keen desire,
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And indignation lights revengeful fire;[120]
Yet those must prologue the infernal stage,
Whose tragics lay in Slavery’s iron age.
Art, science, knowledge, virtue and the rest,
From the earliest times have made their journey
West,[125]
And when from India many a State was past,
In Egypt long their happy lot was cast.
Then cities arose, with temples, walls and towers,
And fountains sparkled ‘mid celestial bowers;
Then broad canals were formed to other lands,[130]
And lofty vessels studded all the strand;
Their arts were sent to many a distant coast,
And wide-spread knowledge was their proudest
boast –
As when the herald of some victory won,[135]
That tells the tale of foreign lands undone –
Proclaims the news, the shouts of joy arise,
And far away the boastful rumor flies –
So spread their influence over moor and high-
land,[140]
Till bondage fled from all that happy island.
Another age, the kingdom shifted hands,
And heavy taxes trammeled all the land,
Till hungry avarice forged oppressive chains,
And Freedom fled to other western plains.[145]
Each after age an equal cycle drew,
Till Greece was lost and Roman splendor grew,
Nor even then, from all examples past,
Could Romans see that they must fall at last;
But traced precisely sin’s bewitching track,[150]
Sporting with Freedom on the fatal rack,
Till Gothic vengeance swept their sunny shore,
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And proud distinctions flourished there no more.
Still to the west Apollo’s journey lay,
Who scattered many a blessing on his way,[155]
Supplied instruction to the listening mind,
And marked the fate of nations left behind.
From civil wars the Goth began to cease,
The neighboring nations learned the arts of
peace,[160]
And lonely Britain with her sister isle,
Woke to new life with a prophetic smile:
For soon advanced a lowly son of pride,
And sought Britannia for his virgin bride,
From whom derived the Anglo-Saxon name,[165]
Has filled the wide creation with its fame.
A thousand cities now are joined as one,
And ruled with pomp by Britain’s haughty son,
Whose myriad servants bend the humble knee,
And countless vessels plow the boundless sea.[170]
While lean Ambition bears aloft her fame,
And spreads her powers as when a raging flame,
In sultry times, proceeds with savage force,
Increased by all encountered in its course,
Involving forests, cities, hill and moor,[175]
And hurls her torch to the neighboring shore.
Another world from ocean’s boundless maze,
Looms up before mankind’s astonished gaze!
Wild was that land, by savage tribes possessed,
Where the gray eagle built her lonely nest,[180]
And savage war-fires, glittering through the
skies,
Were beacons then, where cities now arise.
Through thickets there the shaggy hunters stray’d,
The corn was tended by each half-clad maid,[185]
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And when their barbarous wars were briefly o’er,
They smoked the peace-pipe at the wigwam door.
No higher pleasure could their minds embrace,
For Slavery’s fang had poisoned all the race.
The course pursued on England’s every shore,[190]
Was, raise the rich and trample down the poor;
Their actions taught that none were fit for
heaven,
Except a few to whom the right was given;
And every doubt that stronger minds expressed,[195]
With knotted silence or the rack was “blessed,”
Till torture’s victim chose the sailors toil,
And spread their canvas for Columbia’s soil;
Where men untainted hastened to repair,
But “Satan also came” to meet them there.[200]
Through many years th’ uneven tide of life
Was tossed with tempests, and with savage strife,
But just success established civil right,
And future prospects shone with radiant light.
Now emigration’s ever fluttering sail,[205]
O’er the gray sea advanced before the gale;
One sail at first, then others pressed the rear,
As oft the wild-birds at the close of year,
To freer regions in a warmer land.
They built them homes, and each extended [210]
field
Bore the luxuriance of a golden yield,
While thousands more, the Lion’s future prey,
O’er the wild ocean took their lonely way.
Meantime Oppression’s more than jealous pride[215]
Transported ruin o’er the briny tide,
To lull suspicion and their souls decoy,
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To please their avarice and at last destroy; To fill the land with trouble and dismay, Till love of freedom should have passed away. [220]
The ruin brought was bound with Afric's race, The bond was slavery and the sphere disgrace, For every servant that was bought and sold Increased the drunken hankering after gold.
Here at the source, division first began, [225] A few contended for the rights of man,
Declared that slavery was the code of crimes, That ruined nations in all former times; And wisely saw, should slavery prevail, That every hope for liberty would fail. [230]
Others, alas! whom wealth alone could please, Or strangely sought it in pursuit of ease! With zeal commenced "the trade" in stolen men, And freed the slaver to return again. Now o'er the sea by changing tempests blown, [235] The "dealer" hastens through a course unknown, And lands at last at Slavery's vital mart, And seeks the Chieftain with a "manly heart," Who tramples oft the ruined virgin's grave, And human skulls his sleeping chamber paves;* [240] Arched o'er with bones, confined with muscly
bands—
The windows strung with jaws and severed hands!
Yet there were nations in that sunny clime,
That long escaped the evils of their time — [245]
That lived contented with their humble fare,
* Dahomey — the people are peculiarly ferocious. The king's bedchamber is paved with skulls and the roofs ornamented with the jawbones of chiefs whom he has slain in battle. — Woodbridge's Geography,
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Retired, and happy with domestic care;
Peace was their pride, where sorrow seldom came—
They ne'er had heard the charming monster
Fame; [250]
No fear of danger ever marred their rest—
A harmless people, and "with plenty blessed."
'Twas night. The color fled from Nature's face,
And slumber held her in a soft embrace;
The rosy smile that parting day displayed, [255]
Was lost in deep and far-extended shade.
No sound was heard save the wild forest's roar,
Like moaning waters on a lonely shore.
But hark! those yells! those shrieks and frantic
cries! [260]
The burning town now streaks the livid skies!
The fleeing victims, madly seized, are bound,
And wild despair re-echos all around!
'Twas but a prelude, brief, nor more severe,
Than scenes that each must witness every year, [265]
Driven far onward—sold beyond the sea—
With shackles bound, and never to be free;
And when the chains were fastened ontheir
feet,
And pirates dragged them from that loved re-[270]
treat,
Both joy and hope withdrew their cheering light,
And left them weeping in eternal night.
He sees no more his children round him play,
For, on the billows he is borne away.[275]
And she no more her infant smile serene,
For that was roasted as an "opening scene."
But night and day their prison mounts the waves,
And wafts them onward to the land of slaves.
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III.
Thus sprung from Lerna, nursed by Itian crimes,[280]
Till its broad folds encircled distant climes,
The scaly monster grew, by law revered,
Nor was its poison by the nations feared,
Until, at last, dissensions rose to view,
And Britain learned what younger nations knew, [285]
That love of rule impels the sordid mind
To hate oppressors worst of all mankind.
Disputes advanced—oppression raised her hand,
And indignation filled the excited land,
Till North and South united in the cause, [290]
To sweep from earth those heaven-rejected laws.
Thou, free-born city, who didst dare alone,
In simple guise—armed with a single stone—
To face the imperial giant! Lo! he lies
In humble dust—his honor is thy prize.[295]
Yea, noble Boston, thou hast freed this land
From Naemae's lion, and thy busy hand,
At every turn in mighty works employed—
Corruption cleansed, and monsters' power de-
stroyed—[300]
Thy fame, Herculean, in the stars shall glow,
When two more labors free the land from woe.
Nor thee alone shall all mankind admire,
Though thou alone didst kindle Freedom's fire;
For seven dark years, in dangers passed away, [305]
Call for a reverence that will not decay.
The heroes there who fought in Freedom's
cause,
And never bowed, except to Heaven's laws,
Have won, like Tell, a justly laureled name[310]
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That blooms forever in the land of fame.*
'Tis past! And now how brief its scenes appear!
Though tedious months compose each weary
year.
So are all nations, slowly passed away,[315]
Read and forgotten in a single day;
So the proud scenes, that raptured youth behold,
Were formed in centuries with uncounted gold.
And the rich towns where lonely swains are lost,
What anxious hours each little fortune cost! [320]
Yet most observers glance the surface o'er,
And hastening onward think of it no more.
Now the free Eagle folds his peaceful wings,
No longer restless with the fear of kings:
Heroes and sages fill the chairs of State, [325]
Selecting laws to guide the nation's fate.
Systems they planned, some part for every need,
But on one portion all were not agreed,
For half, with dangerous look of dark designs,
Claimed a free empire over feebler minds, [330]
And "pushed" with threatening dangers (was it
just?)
That Law, which tramples millions in the dust!
O sordid man! to retribution blind,
What strange ideas of freedom fill thy mind! [335]
Free to oppress, is from all virtue free,
And Vice with Liberty can ne'er agree.
For where's the single bondage strong or foul,
Like that which binds to earth the soaring soul?
Half driven from herself, thus Freedom spoke: [340]
I leave you, and forever, thou has broke
The silken cord that bound my joys to thee.
* Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil.—Milton.
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Farewell, false Land, Freedom shall still be free.